Protozoan–bacterial symbiosis in a deep‐sea hydrothermal vent folliculinid ciliate (<i>Folliculinopsis</i> sp.) from the Juan de Fuca Ridge
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This study provides a first description of the morphology of Blue Mats: sessile, colonial folliculinid ciliates (Folliculinopsis sp.) that create dense bright blue carpets in certain Juan de Fuca Ridge vent fields and at vents elsewhere. In one area of widespread venting, for example, Blue Mats occupied approximately 70% of the substratum. The ultrastructure of the Blue Mat ciliates was investigated in samples from Axial Volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge using conventional scanning electron microscopy and thin section transmission electron microscopy. These Folliculinopsis sp. ciliates secrete and dwell in tubes (loricae). The loricae were colonized by both coccoid and filamentous bacteria‐like structures. Greater densities of coccoid‐ and short‐rod‐shaped bacteria were found between rows of cilia on the ciliate body (zooid) and especially on the peristomal lobes (arm‐like extensions typical to folliculinid ciliates). A coccoid bacterial morphotype (within and independent of a vacuole) was located throughout the ciliate cytoplasm. Groups of this organism clustered within vacuoles were regularly distributed along the ciliate cortex. Electron dense, vacuole‐bound features characterized by stacked membranous structures were also found within the ciliate cytoplasm. These results suggest the existence of at least an endosymbiosis between Folliculinopsis sp. ciliates and bacteria at hydrothermal vents. The chemolithoautotrophic nature of these symbiotic bacteria remains to be confirmed. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a protozoan–bacterial symbiosis at vents, as well as the first reported symbiosis in folliculinid ciliates.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".